John Hjorth

Please leave Seeking Alpha subscriptions out of this topic, if you want to reply here. Please start your own separate topic for discussion of Seeking Alpha subscribtions here on CoBF, if you feel inclined. The subsciption framework on Substack is materially different compared to the one used at Seeking Alpha, at least ATM for both, compared. -So please, - No *BS*, - no long song offtopic here - from the warm countries. -Thus. Thank you in advance.

This has been on my mind for while. To me, personally, it has become gradually worse over time. I can't really pinpoint towards time, but to me : It's happening : *BS* and nonsense posted there about every day. So called "writers" running out of steam, now providing i.e. "Berkshire bits" - of the week - about what Mr. Buffett might have said some 20 years ago at an AGM, or what do I know. Lately, I've become really tired of all that stuff hitting me, making me choose to disconnect to several Substack accounts. How about you? - What do you do? - And what are your thoughts about it? -Thank you in advance for sharing your perceptions, opinions and insigths in this topic. Have a nice weekend.

I ordered this book at www.amazon.de about a week ago, today it got delivered as paperback from a physical adress in Italy [only this paperback version available as of now]. It's a reprint of the book by Mr. Phelps released many years ago [right now, not clear to me, when], released in November 2014. A dinosaur, but I'm looking forward to the read anyway.

I ordered this book about a week ago at www.amazon.de [to avoid customs from out side EU], because of the prohibitive price of the book at my favorite Danish web bookstore : www.saxo.com [cheaper to buy it at the German Amazon website, delivered to Denmark than using Saxo]. Just for starters, I started reading the introduction today by Chris Mayer. It appears from that, that Mr. Mayer has had some kind black swan [positive!] experience / [h]eureca-moment reading the transcript of a speech held by Chuck Akre back in 2011. [For me, that's about one year before I got hell bent serious with investing and stock picking, to make a material difference to the future living conditions of the Lady of the House and I]. I actually managed to find that piece today, and reading it, so to say, diverted me today from the book as such. I hereby share it here: Chuck Akre [November 1st 2011] : An Investor's Odyssey : The Search For Outstanding Investments.

Nothing forgotten about Mr. Flatt for my part, @dealraker just not in the mood right now to pull in the rope about it. Spring is here, while located much more northern in the northern hemisphere than you, enjoying the northern European spring climate, with a big thank you to the Gulf Stream. Just sun from a clear blue sky, 16o C now at about 4:00 PM. Life is great, as you say!

@Dinar, An industrial comglomerate headquartered in Denmark [Århus, Jutland], built from basically nothing about 24 years ago. Consists today of six strong or fairly good global businesses, each of them headquartered in Denmark, + a group HQ. Known for taking risks while investing for the future under headwinds. It has been busy with organic growth, M&A and bolt-ons the last few years, while paying a steady or rising dividend, while it also has been buying back its own stock, without getting levered up too much. I feel that I haven't seen any capital allocation mistakes here yet, now that I think of it. Results appear lagging lately according to some, but to me it's about serious amounts of capital tied up in growth capex and conscious decisions related to net working capital management, both harming ROIC short term. At least around DKK 100 M pre tax in PPA depreciations each year, that aren't real. It looks today much different than when I bought the first shares now almost a decade ago now - and much bigger, and - to me - better, and I think this will also be the case 5 or 10 years from now. Boring to some, certainly underfollowed, some has even called it a *POS*.

Bought some more SCHOU.CPH [as I have done within the three years or so, on and off]. Furthermore added a very tiny bit to BN.

Jeff, [ @DooDiligence ], Why are you imposing these "Berkshire" restrictions with regard to [[postion size] and [thereby return?!?!]] to yourself? - To me, it makes no sense.

Somehow, this last post of yours hit a nerve at me, Mike [ @boilermaker75 ], My personal biggest worries related to the conflict and all its ramifications, as of right now, and ordered : How to stop the meaningsless loss of so many lives, How to stop the meaningsless loss of all kind of infrastructure, homes etc., & How to get the adoption of Sweden in Nato on the fly. [If some of my fellow CoBF members don't understand the importance of Sweden in this respect, just look up an updated map for the NATO area in the Nordics. It is about protecting the integrity of Finland.]

Book mentioned in the The NVO - Novo Nordisk topic here on CoBF. Danish version : Gads Forlag : Kurt Jacobsen : Novo Nordisk, English version : Gads Forlag : Kurt Jacobsen : Novo Nordisk [English edition]. [Which will be released on April 14th 2023.] I reveived the Danish version of the book yesterday. Started reading a bit of it late in the evening, ended up reading on in the bed, after I hit the hay. Very hard for me to let it go, to go sleep. Kurt Jacobsen is a professor at Copenhagen Business School, he is a holder of a ph.d. in history, with a certain interest in business history. I immediately "fell in to the book" [got hooked] while I started reading. The book has been produced in celebration of the predecessors of Novo Nordisk reaching the age of 100 years, while the company granting Kurt Jacobsen unlimited access to the archives of the company. It's thorough and meticulous in all matters covered, to an extreme degree. It's actually written as was it a ph.d. thesis. From what I have read so far, I got a lot of knowledge about Insuline and Diabates in the early days, now 100 years ago.

Thanks for the color, @rkbabang.

I just want to schime in here and say as an European CoBF member, that reading this topic as of lately, is simply heartbreaking. Reading this makes me appreciate my own living conditions up here in the northern part of Europe. Here, we certainly have our challenges with getting our public health care system to work properly, but nothing like the described societal problems recently in this topic here.

@dealraker, I really appreciate that you are taking your personal time to respond to my posts. This :

Off topic, and then - after all - not at all, New book from Morgan Housel on its way to its audience - as I understand things, it is set to be published later this year :

Thank you, @Saluki, To me, The above is just so true, nailing it. Thanks for the recommendation.

I hear you, @thowed, Parts of the book are likely to most active CoBF members a bit trivial, I think. Yeah, likely you are a minority being disappointed, - I don't recall where I saw it, but Harriman House sale of this book has now exceeded 3 million copies. That's a lot!

@dealraker, First I got a good laugh reading it the first time, now I see the topic continue at good clip - with no response or reaction towards you. Now I can't help it any longer.

Thank you, @gfp, My immediate thought - perhaps more a kind of a question - here is : Is this perhaps a token for Mr. Abel taking more control and putting his own personal fingerprints on things and processes in the privately held [non-listed] non-insurance companies?

The subtitle of the book is : "Timeless lessons on Wealth, Greed and Happiness". The subtitle says it all. The book is covering 19 short stories, covering concepts about human behavior and rationality [, or lack thereoff] related to money. Many of those concepts are one way or an other covered or touched during the activity here on CoBF about every day. It's very well written. I have really enjoyed reading the book.

@dealraker, These overriding themes, dwarfing, overriding and overshawing everything [well, naturally not everything] and creating a certain negative sentiment has been going on pretty constantly also here on CoBF, as long as I've been around [, and that's now more than decade], which I think is somewhat mentally unhealthy to adopt to. To which degree do they matter? Well, naturally it matters in respect to how one is invested. So if these macro things keeps one awake at night, perhaps the solution would be to invest differently than what one already does? Based on the "Pro Business" attitude I posses based on education and professional training etc., I'm a firm beiever in the on CoBF former technical platform signature by @Spekulatius : [This is not nice, but] I find it striking that some CoBF members are more active in these kind of topics than in the Investment Ideas forum. Keep the eyes on the ball. The ball here is your own portfolio. This not the same as as stating all "macro-talk" on CoBF has no relevance, i.e. for real estate is matters a lot.

@dealraker, Personally, I don't think there is anything wrong with the work provided and shared - public - Mr. Bloomstran. There may be shades and nuances, - here and there, where you may be left at on your own discretion - till example last year, Mr. Bloomstran handicapped the Berkshire AAPL position by USD 50 B - talk to me about variant perception! - Or was that the year before?! To me, in the end, it is all about aiming for return vs. patience and risk taking. I do not consider Mr. Bloomstran bad in that regard. He just has some preferences outside my own circle of competence [, in general called energy], that causes me to never really *click* with him. And after all, - in the end - he is just another money manger, - with a personal agenda - that applies to such people. - - - o 0 o - - - The only difference compared to Mr. Buffett [the younger version of him] I've personally been able identify is a swimming pool [, but what do I know, I may be wrong here].

@Xerxes, To me, it appears as somebody - has - more or less - forgotten - who to serve first [clients]. Because I'm not actually a customer, my perception may thus be totally wrong. To me, it's just dishonest and disingenious to allocate a material part of capital from limited partners to Berkshire, instead of asking the limited partners buying Berkshire stock themselves to hold. Maybe the content of this post can be boiled to that I'm about to have had enough of Mr. Bloomstran. By further thoughts, I may be absolutely unreasonbly here, because actually, not much really material happens at Berkshire during a year, forgetting the material leaps in some years.

Backdrop I follow a Twitter account. It's one of those thingies on the Web, that - at least to me - just keeps on giving and giving, while I deliver nothing. Here, I'm almost hit by bad conscience by things being so. A person just "by nature" wired to share good and interesting stuff - never even asking for anything in return [here, for me, Substack and SA comes to mind]. The Twitter handle is Massimo, and the Twitter account is @ Rainmaker1973. The combination of a visible curiosity and an enourmous intellectual capacity to adapt and adopt across multiple sciences [mathematics / physics / chemistry / biology / astronomy ], combined with high energy levels can create something outstanding, to the benefit of other people, if the sharing mindset is based on sincerety and honesty, without no other - perhaps not so honorable - motive, likely based on some kind / shade / dimension of egoism. Book: Today, I was - again - handed a gem - by Massimo - for free : Silvanus P. Thompson - Calculus made easy [pdf-file]. Open source project for sharing : Calculus made easy. Personally, I think every investor being serious about their doings should read the chapter: On true Compound of Interest and the Law of of Organic Growth . - - - o 0 o - - - As an advid book collector, I will not try to search for physical specimens of this book. I have a feeling the price asked - if any even available - will be in a major conflict with my scope of not committing large outlays to unproductive assets. I may even not afford it. If this post has caught your interest, I hope you may enjoy your experience. Teaser 1: Teaser 2:

This is soo funny to me! Personally, I have experienced quite a bit here on CoBF in the last decade [yes, now more than a decade - many other still active on here and esteemed CoBF members beat that by multiples!] - During that period ,in wich I've been a CoBF member, I have experienced quite a lot on here, all things not always a pleasant experience. I've actually from time to time had thoughts about "leaving" / logging out for good [I would never delete my CoBF account] - that has been when the posting style from someone [or several someones] has been confrontational, personal, here including namecalling and I don't know what. Those periods in the existence of CoBF are fortunately over now, and has been so for many years now - and will hopefully not come back again. - - - o 0 o - - - Just to share here my experience from back then here on CoBF when you may be in personal trouble, based on your posting : I have always thought that a CoBF member should in any circumstance just "be your honest inner self" while posting.

@Sweet, It happens from time to time, that you may be undecided about certain companies, from what you may read here CoBF from other board members and other stuff. Do you really need a firm and high conviction of your own then to engage? It's all about making yourself comfortable with regard to position sizing, based on "if you don't try, you'll never get to grasp the knack of it!" I've now owned for many years V, MA & CSU [based on reading the respective topics of those investments back then in time here on CoBF] [each their own indivial investment cases], based on that approach. Pretty awesome experience, I might say [I and - naturally - should add : Thank you! - to the CoBF posters sharing their work and thoughts with me back then]. It is about dividing your own conviction more granular, the "too hard" pile divided from : "Too hard", in to "Too hard" and "Perhaps too hard for me", but if you don't try, you'll never learn it." It is all about personal adaption, adoption & improvement over time, to get better.